View report page

75
It is hardly possible to imagine a Borough more beset with difficulties—
difficulties which have to be overcome before Slum Clearance activities can
actually start and difficulties which arise during the redevelopment of
cleared sites.
The housing
problem in
Stepney.
As can readily be understood, ready-made building sites in Stepney are
few and far between and all initial sites have to be obtained as a result of
much careful thought and negotiation. Without these initial sites Slum
Clearance cannot begin. For the purpose of continuity in Slum Clearance the
sites of Limehouse Fields and of Market Buildings are quite useless—they are
serving very useful purposes, however, in allowing of rebuilding in order to
rehouse people living in slums on those sites. Southern British Ropes and
Branch Road sites, however, will be excellent rehousing sites and already the
former is earmarked for the inhabitants of the Beccles Street area, upon
which the Council made a Compulsory Purchase Order during the year. The
Branch Road flats will become available for the inhabitants of areas to
be represented in 1935. A real start has been made, and with careful
arrangement these two sites will lead to a continuous programme of Slum
Clearance by the Council.
There are still, however, grave difficulties ahead. To rehouse slum
dwellers in modern flats and to make no provision for good air space around
those flats and for proper and adequate open spaces is merely to perpetuate
slum conditions. There must, therefore, be proper planning in the redevelopment
of slum areas.
I am of the opinion that Town Planning should actually precede
Slum Clearance, or, at the very least, that these two activities
should proceed hand-in-hand. If blocks of flats are not erected according
to an already prepared layout plan there will be chaos. There are large
areas in Stepney which are crying out to be completely reconstructed and
unless plans are developed on those lines the Borough will never be improved
from a healthy residential point of view. The London County Council have
decided to Town Plan those Boroughs which were not previously subject to
Town Planning, so the opportunity has now arrived for real constructive
work in Stepney. Slum clearance must therefore work hand-in-hand with
reconstruction on proper Town Planning lines and those lines must give to
Stepney some large open spaces which are so urgently necessary.
As in the case of the abatement of overcrowding, so in the case of reconstruction
after Slum Clearance—many persons displaced from slum areas
must be rehoused outside the Borough. It is possible, however, when that